


Thank You

by ILoveTeamFortressToo



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Crossfaction, Fluff, Gen, Mann vs. Machine, Protect them at all costs, Pyro is precious, Red/Blu - Freeform, Robots, nonbinary Pyro
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-12
Packaged: 2018-08-19 14:06:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8211236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ILoveTeamFortressToo/pseuds/ILoveTeamFortressToo
Summary: It starts off with saving a life and it ends with cake.It's amazing what a difference one good deed can make.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [survivingCanberra](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=survivingCanberra).



> Three part commission for Survivingcanberra on Tumblr. Thanks again for commissioning me!
> 
> This fic's a real step away from my usual kind of thing (where's the angst???) but I had fun with it! Especially since it got me writing Pyro, a character who doesn't usually feature heavily in my fics despite being my main in game!

It was an instinct so deep that it was written into his bones. When someone screams you run towards the sound. Never away. It was the healer's duty. No matter what the danger, no matter what the risk to yourself, you must always put your teammates first.

It was something that, with his unorthodox experiments and loose grasp of morals, the RED Medic would never understand. But the BLU did.

So when he heard a scream rise above the noise of the battle, he changed direction and limped towards it as fast as possible. His Heavy was dead. The giant soldierbot they'd been fighting was dead too, but the shrapnel from one of its exploding rockets had lodged itself firmly in the Medic's right leg.

No matter. No matter. The patient came first.

Another cry of pain.

He picked up the pace. Who was that? Who needed to be saved?

He rounded the corner to find the scene laid out before him. An axe abandoned on the ground amongst the twisted remains of two scoutbots. A swathe of blood. A spybot crumpled in the dust. More blood. Another scoutbot, one leg slightly damaged but still functioning. Its bat raised, silver tinted in red at the end. Beneath it, huddled up against a wall: Pyro.

The RED Pyro.

The enemy Pyro.

No.

Not the enemy anymore.

Medic charged forward, teeth gritted into a snarl against the pain in his leg. He crashed bodily into the scoutbot, sending it reeling off to the side.

'Hey, Doc,' the scoutbot said, its robotic voice coming out even more distorted than usual. Medic bared his teeth at it, hating the way the crackling, pre-recorded voicelines always made the nape of his neck prickle. He drew out his bonesaw and shoved it as hard as he could between the joints in its metal chest, severing wires. There was a horrible screech of metal-on-metal as the saw hit the robot's spine.

The scoutbot's legs gave out. It fell to the ground, yanking Medic's bonesaw out of his hand as it went.

'Hey, D-d-d-doc, h-h-h-hey-hey-y-y-y,' the robot said, the blue of its eyes flickering erratically.

'Heeeyyyyyy...'

Medic turned his back on it. He had more important things to see to than a dying robot.

The BLU Pyro had pulled themselves a couple of feet away. Medic could see exactly where they'd started off from the blood soaking into the wooden barn wall.

As Medic approached, the Pyro flinched, a burbling, whimpering sound escaping through the filter of their mask.

'There, there, it's okay,' Medic said hesitantly, making calming gestures with his hands. He felt like he was approaching a wounded animal. Well, this was the _RED_ Pyro after all. This creature had laughed while torching him to death more times than he could remember.

But now they were here on the ground in front of him, badly injured and clearly in great pain and distress. When they shuffled backwards they only used one arm, and there was something about how gingerly they moved that suggested broken ribs. A botched backstab from the Spybot and multiple accounts of blunt-force trauma caused by those scoutbots' bats, Medic suspected.

'I'm here to help, I promise.' He'd never been very good at the whole 'bedside manner’ part of being a doctor. He usually just told people to hold still and man-up, but he didn't even know if the Pyro _was_ a man under that suit.

Another miserable little burble from the Pyro. They'd stopped trying to escape though. Medic knelt down next to them and pulled his medipack off. The thing was, each medigun could only heal one team. As he understood it, it had been set up that way to stop those cheating REDs from stealing the medigun off his dead body and using it on their own teammates. Though, admittedly, if given the chance, the BLU team might do the same thing. But only because they knew RED would try and do it first.

Medic _had_ meant to swap some medigun fluid with the RED Medic so they could heal both team, but the two groups had been so fractured and argumentative since they first joined forces that it hadn't seemed worth it. Plus, the RED Medic was an asshole. They had to share one infirmary together now but had ended up splitting it in half with curtains because they fought so much. It was all very childish, Medic had to admit. But the RED had started it.

As he reached into his jacket and pulled out a little red-tinted vial, Medic felt relieved that he'd sneaked behind the other Medic's back and stolen some of his formula for further study. It was only luck that had it in his pocket now though; he'd simply forgotten about moving it elsewhere once the sirens had started up and the latest robot attack began.

Medic emptied out the BLU medifluid from his gun barrel and poured the RED down it. As he worked he muttered nonsensical phrases of reassurance to the Pyro. 'Just one more moment, bitte, there, just one more moment, then it'll be all right, then it'll be all okay.' He had to reconnect the gun to the canister to get the whole thing running again, but hopefully there would be enough RED medifluid in there to heal the Pyro before the BLU came back through..

It occurred to Medic as he turned the medigun back on that he could have just sent the Pyro through respawn. Their weapons still worked on each other after all, as his Heavy had proven when the RED Spy made one crude joke too many about their close friendship.

But he realised he couldn't do it. RED and BLU might still fight with one another, but they were on the same side of the war now. This Pyro was his ally. This Pyro was his patient. It was his duty as a field medic to do everything in his power to help them.

'The medigun heals faster when you've got skin exposed,' he said.

Pyro shook their head fervently, evening sunlight bouncing off the lenses of their mask. 'Npth sknth, npth sknth!' and then a quiet, muffled little, 'Plpth.'

Medic nodded, respecting his patient's wishes. He almost said, 'well here goes nothing' as he activated the medigun, but stopped himself when he realised that that wouldn't be the most reassuring thing to say.

RED fumes streamed out of the end of his gun. It was a strange thing to watch. Medic had always associated the colour with harm, not with healing. It seemed to be working though, the Pyro's rattling breathing returning to normal, and the fingers on their limp arm starting to move again.

Gradually the fumes turned purple and began to snake around Medic too. He felt the pain in his leg fade as purple eased into red. That presented so many interesting possibilities. Is that all it would take to create a universal medigun, the mixing on the two fluids? Combined, would their effectiveness be decreased or boosted? At what shade would the medigun stop healing one team? What if-

Red and black filled Medic's vision. Arms wrapped around him. The smell of petrol and burning plastic filled his nose. For a moment, panic flared through Medic, leaving him rigid. The filter on the side of Pyro's mask knocked against his chest as they buried their head in against him. They squeezed him lightly with arms that felt far stronger than Medic had expected from the little figure. Well, they did spend all day lugging a flame thrower around, it really shouldn't have come as a surprise.

'Fnpth fu,' Pyro said, 'fnpth fu fur phthvthn mpth, Medipth.'

'Um, you're welcome,' Medic replied, relaxing a little. He patted Pyro gingerly on the shoulder, not sure what else to do.

'Right, then, we'd, uh, better go find our teams. Should be easy, we've just got to follow the sound of mini-gun fire and explosions!'

In the end it was the RED team they ran into first. Medic hung back warily, wanting to make sure that his patient was safe, but not wanting to get too close to the REDs. They were on the same side now but 'accidents' had happened before on the battlefield, and things could get hostile even when they didn't.

'You take care now,' Medic said, one eye on Pyro, one eye on the RED Demoman behind them folding his arms and glaring.

'Mpth mpth!' Pyro replied happily. He turned around when he'd joined the Demoman and gave Medic a big thumbs-up. Medic nodded back to him and left, forcing himself to walk and not run while the eyes of the RED team burned into his back. He suspected that the Pyro's team was going to have a lot of questions for them. He wondered if they'd be able to understand any of the muffled answers.

The sound of gunfire drew his thoughts swiftly away as he rushed off to join his team. Amongst all the shouts, explosions and battle cries, he soon forgot about his odd encounter with the enemy Pyro.

He was reminded of it again two days later.

There was something lying on his desk in the infirmary. A white piece of paper, lopsidedly folded in two. It hadn't been there last night. Medic was very careful about organising his paperwork, but only because the RED wasn't. Small victories and all that.

He picked it up and turned it over. It was a card. At the bottom there was something fat and pink. A pig he thought, before adjusting his glasses and peering at it more closely. No, a unicorn? There were two figures above that, one drawn in red, the other blue. Written in laboriously careful bubble writing was the word 'me' next to the red figure and 'Medeck' next to the blue. A shape at the top that looked like a ball with two huge hands coming out of it had been drawn in pink and then coloured in in white. Next to it was an arrow and the label, 'Ackemeds.'

Medic flipped the card open. Inside, in blue on top of an arching rainbow, it said, 'thankyou.'

He closed it again, studying the front. It was very amateurishly drawn, yes, but something about it spoke of a great amount of effort. Maybe it was the colouring, the way every area had been devoutly coloured in without a speck of white paper showing through and with barely any colouring over the lines. This had been no rushed job.

Medic realised he was smiling, and even when he did, he couldn't stop it. There was something utterly charming about the card and the thought that had been put into it.

Sometimes Medic thought his own team, apart from the Heavy, forgot about how hard his job was and how hard he tried. Other times, people like Soldier or Scout would berate him for not being quick enough, or for not healing them because he was too busy being dead. Again.

And yet, the RED Pyro, that masked being that he'd thought was just a soulless monster until recently... they'd given him a thank you card. No, better, they'd gone to the effort of _making_ him a thank you card.

Medic didn't consider himself a sentimental man, but he tucked the card away into his desk all the same. Maybe he was getting soft. Or maybe, for once, he deserved to feel happy for being acknowledged for a job well done.

He couldn't leave the card out, his teammates and the RED Medic would have too many irritating comments to say about it, but he left it safely tucked away in his top drawer.

 

That evening Medic staggered back to the infirmary, so tired he could barely keep hold of his medigun. He hooked it up to the wall mount to recharge, collapsed down into his chair, and pulled open the drawer. He lifted the card out, and he smiled.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

It had been a long day of fighting, and one that was far from finished. Though it looked as though it might be for Medic. He staggered backwards as a stray bullet clipped his side. His madipack was heavy. So heavy. He could barely stand. Medic took another step back as he glanced around wildly for any sign of a teammate. He could barely see through cracked, smoke-smudged glasses. The back of his foot caught on something. With an undignified yelp, Medic tripped.

One bone-jarring moment later he found himself on his back, the medipack digging painfully into him. He tried to pull himself back up only for a pinching pain to shoot up his spine. Medic groaned. All the bombs and bullets and robots around and he'd ended up downed on his back like a tortoise thanks to a trapped nerve.

Medic let out a resigned sigh. There was nothing he could do but wait for the medigun fumes to heal him or for one of his teammates to find him and try and help him up. Which would hurt. A lot.

A third option presented itself in the form of slow, clanging footsteps. Medic stiffened, sending a stab of pain up his spine. He raised his head to find a giant Heavybot slowly making its way past him. Medic was in plain sight. All it would have to do was turn its head and-it turned its head. Two blue lights stared straight at him from an expressionless metal face. With a jerky motion the robot changed its course, heading straight for Medic.

Medic swore in rapid German as he forced himself to his feet despite the pain. He'd been going too long without a break or food; his legs were shaking from the effort. The medipack. It was too heavy. He couldn't escape with it. With a grunt and more twinges from his still healing back, Medic dragged it off.

The Heavybot was close now, its shadow looming over Medic. The only reason Medic wasn't dead yet was because it was already damaged. Someone, probably one of the heavies (probably _his_ Heavy) had managed to rip the minigun out of its massive hands. One arm was out of commission, scorched and bullet-riddled and hanging uselessly at its side. It didn't need two arms to kill Medic though. It probably didn't even need one. It could crush him to death under its huge feet and heavy weight. That had happened to Medic once in their early days of battle the robots. He didn't want to ever have to repeat that experience ever again.

The earth shook with each slow, relentless stride. Medic frantically searched for an escape. There used to be one to the right of him but a rocket had brought half a building down in a slew of bricks and tiles too high for him to possibly scrambled over.

His eyes flickered to a half-open door on the other side. The Heavybot was closer to it than he was though. It might be slow, but its reach was long. Medic knew he'd never make it in time. He took a nervous step backwards and bared his teeth at the Heavybot in one final act of defiance. It would win this fight but Medic would win the war. He would make sure of it.

A great gout of flames burst into the air in front of Medic like dragon's fire. He gaped as it enveloped the huge Heavybot, smoke rising up from inside its metal plates. Laboriously, the Heavybot swung itself around to face the new threat, but by the time its body was facing the door, its attacker had moved.

Fire swept around it, changing direction every few seconds. Soot blackened its silver surface as flames licked around it. Metal turned red hot. The Heavybot's movements ground to a halt, its headlights flickering.

For a moment, it looked as though it had been defeated.

Then the blue lights blazed back to life and it took another creaking, shuddering step towards Medic, its giant hand reaching out for him. Its last act on earth would be to take the Medic down with it in a mess of crushed bones and ruptured organs.

A wild battle-cry filled the air. The flames and smoke decapitated in time for Medic to see the RED Pyro swing their axe up into the Heavybot's knee joint with all their might.

There was a horrible screech of metal tearing through metal. The Heavybot juddered to a halt, straining forward to reach the Medic just a hand's width away.

The Pyro leant their weight in against the axe. With a crack, something gave.

Slowly, oh so slowly, the Heavybot keeled over to the side. It hit the already damaged building, crushing the one remaining wall as it fell in a rain of bricks and mortar.

The RED Pyro advanced on Medic with flamethrower in hand. Medic watched death, painful, agonising, burning, death, approach him. It had ended this way so many times before. Of all the ways to die on this battlefield, death by fire was truly the worst.

'Medipth? Medipth?' The monster was standing over Medic now, his own wide-eyed face reflected in the lenses of their mask. When had he ended up on the floor? He couldn't remember.

It didn't matter. Soon flames would engulf him, cracking his skin, boiling his insides, burning him alive.

'Youpth alripth, Medipth? Hurth?' A sooty, gloved hand reached towards him. Medic stared at it. There was no flamethrower in it now. No axe either. No flare gun. Just an open hand offered to him.

Slowly, as though afraid it might bite, Medic lifted his arm up and took the RED Pyro's hand. They helped pull him to his feet, muffled mumbles coming from behind the mask the entire time. Medic couldn't make out a word of it but the Pyro's tone made it finally click into place.

They were worried about him. They'd rescued him, helped him up and were checking if he was hurt.

'I'm fine,' Medic said faintly. 'Perfectly fine. Just had a bit of a...shock back there, but I'm over it now.'

'Mpth! Compth mpth, bkpth tuh yur tphm!'

'Sorry?'

Pyro repeated themselves.

'Back to my team?' Medic hazarded after listening closely.

'Yupth!'

'That's quite all right, I can find my may back to them myself.' Pyro shook their head and waddled past Medic to pick up his Medipack. 'Uh, thank you,' Medic said as they handed it over. Despite helping them last time, Medic's brain was still sending panicked signals to him, telling him to run. Medic blamed it on the shock he'd just had and his fight or flight instincts. Medic believed that what set humans apart from animals was their ability to overcome their instincts though, so he ignored them. Together they wrenched the axe back out of the Heavybot's knee. The bottom half of it had broken off entirely.

'I'm sorry about that,' Medic said. It had been damaged saving this life, after all.

Pyro shook their head. 'Dnpth be.'

'Last I saw of my team they were dropping back towards respawn. That robot with the bomb was getting rather close. At least we know they managed to stop it!'

'Wedpth duh?'

'Yes, or we'd all be rather dead right now.'

They moved in silence for some time after that, dodging from the shadow on one building to the next. When all they'd passed were empty stretches and broken robots, Medic found himself casting about for something to say. He'd said thank you, hadn't he? He must have. It was just he couldn't remember doing so. An idea occurred to him.

'Does this mean I've got to make you a thank you card?' Medic joked.

Pyro clapped excitedly, bouncing up and down on the balls of their feet. 'Yepth! Yepth pleapth!'

Oh. That meant he was actually going to have to do one now, didn't it?

 

 

Medic sat at his desk, glaring down at the paper in front of him. It was late, the lamp over his desk the only source of light in the infirmary. He'd had to wait until the RED Medic retired for the night, else he would have been laughed at. The RED Medic liked laughing at him. Then again, he liked laughing at the RED Medic too.

 

He chewed on the end of his pencil thoughtfully, trying to think. What to draw? What to draw what to draw what to draw... When Medic set his heart on a task it had to be done _right_ and this card was going to be done right if it killed him. The waste paper basket next to his desk was already overflowing with carefully folded and then roughly crumpled pieces of paper, each an attempt at a thank you card that hadn't made the cut.

Medic had tried drawing himself. He'd tried drawing the Pyro. He'd tried drawing a flamethrower. A dead Heavybot. A big sign saying 'thank you.' A unicorn. Even a rainbow. The last ended up screwed up into a tighter ball than any of the others (save the unicorn, now that one was just _embarrassing_ ), the problem being that he had no colouring pencils and there was something about a grey rainbow that didn't really shout 'thank you!'

Archimedes landed on the edge of his desk in a flurry of white wings and white paper. His doves were another thing that he had to save until the RED Medic went to bed. He couldn't stand birds flying around in the infirmary. According to him it was too 'unsanitary'. The RED had demanded that the doves be kept in their cages, and to keep the peace (or as close to peace as they could manage), the BLU had agreed. He let his doves out at night anyway though because the RED was an ass and what he didn't know couldn't hurt him.

'Now don't go pooping in here again or he'll get suspicious,' Medic told Archimedes, rubbing a thumb against the back of the dove's head. Archimedes closed his eyes contentedly. It made Medic smile to see how friendly Archimedes had become. He certainly hadn't started out that way. A bit like the Pyro, Medic thought to himself. He stopped moving his thumb. Archimedes opened his eyes accusingly and shuffled his feet, as though about to take off again.

'No no no, you stay right there,' Medic told him. 'Here's the deal: I'll go fetch you some sunflower seeds, and in return, you do some modelling for me...'

 

Medic waited until he could get the RED Pyro by themselves before he gave them the card, something that took an unsurprisingly long time, considering how hostile the two teams could still be to one another. No one wanted to leave one of their teammates alone with an enemy, just in case. In the end, Medic had to to ask the Pyro to meet him later as they passed one another in the corridor. The RED Spy walked by a moment later, giving Medic a cold look. The RED Spy's face always looked like that though, so it didn't worry him.

 

'Medipth?' a quiet voice asked. Medic glanced up from the papers he was studying. Pyro hovered in the doorway, one hand holding onto the frame as though they were scared they were going to be swept away.

'Ah, Pyro! Please come in.'

The Pyro hesitated.

'I'm not planning to run any medical tests on you, I promise,' Medic said, sensing the problem. 'I just want to give you something.'

The Pyro slowly peeled their fingers away from the door frame and edged into the room. Medic tugged his top drawer open and lifted out a folded piece of paper. He hadn't been able to find any card, so it would have to do. There were envelopes around but he'd decided not to use one just in case the Pyro set fire to it or couldn't get into it because of their thick gloves.

'Here you go, Pyro. I said I'd make you one.'

Pyro paused, staring at the paper in his hands. Then they hurried over and took it off him. They slowly turned the card over to look at the front. And didn't move. Not a muscle. They just stayed exactly where they were, lenses fixed on the paper in their hands.

It went on for so long that Medic stood up and rounded his table, peering down at the paper from a safe distance to double-check he hadn't accidentally given them the grey rainbow one. Nope, it was definitely the detailed little picture of Archimedes that he'd spent hours drawing and carefully shading.

Carefully, oh so carefully, the Pyro reached up a finger to stroke the illustrated Archimedes' back.

'Um, is it okay?' Medic asked. He hadn't accidentally pissed off the enemy pyromaniac had he? 'I'm sorry, I didn't have any colouring pencils. I know it's not as interesting as your card, and-' The Pyro cut him off short by enveloping him in a tight hug.

'Fnpth fu, Medipth! I lovpth itph. I lovpth itph.'

'Ah, I'm glad,' Medic replied, taken aback by the sudden hug. He patted the Pyro on the back. He found that he'd really meant what he said. Seeing the Pyro happy made him happy too.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here's the final Chapter! Enjoy! :)

Medic had never been all that interested in having 'friends.' If people liked him, well that was nice. Unexpected but nice. As long as they didn't think he should spend all his time with them. Conscious people became just so...draining after a while. He'd need to retreat to a nice dissection or anatomy book by himself after only a short time of socialising.

That's why Medic liked his team's Heavy so much. The Russian knew when to give him space. Even when they spent time in the same room, it was often in companionable silence while they both got on with their own things.

Then the RED Pyro joined them. And surprisingly, little changed. Medic would work at his desk, Heavy would read a book on the battered old couch in the corner that the RED Medic hated so much, and Pyro would lay on a rug on the floor, scribbling in colouring books, or playing with soft toys. Apart from the odd happy mumble or hum, Medic barely even noticed them while he worked.

The rug was from Medic's room. It was a little more singed than it had once been, but at least it kept Pyro off the cold floor. As to where they'd got the colouring books and toys from, Medic didn't know. He suspected one of the Engineers supplied them, though he had seen the RED Spy give the Pyro a fresh pack of crayons. That had made Medic stop and re-evaluate what he thought of the Spy just a little.

That afternoon after the fighting was over, Pyro didn't show up. They could come and go as they wanted, no problem. Of course they could. Maybe they'd gone to spend time with one of the Engineers. Or maybe the Spy. All right, so maybe that was a bit of a push, but they were bound to have other things to do. Or maybe they were just later than normal. Or maybe-

'I'm sure little Pyro is fine, Doctor,' Heavy said, peering at him over a battered copy of War and Peace.

'Huh. Pyro? Who said anything about Pyro?'

'You keep looking at rug and sighing.'

'I am not “sighing.” You make it sound as though I'm some kind of lovestruck teen. Over the RED Pyro.'

Heavy shrugged. He pulled the book up to try and hide his smirk when he added, 'You were the one to say it, Doctor.'

Medic snorted and rolled his eyes. While people often failed to notice the Heavy's intelligence, it was his sense of humour they overlooked most often.

'Saw little Pyro making something in the kitchen before I came here,' Heavy said.

Medic dropped his pen. 'In the kitchen? Oh dear. You know, maybe I should just, ah, go check on things. Make sure Pyro doesn't burn the base down. Watch Archimedes for me, won't you? Smoke is very dangerous for birds.' With that he rushed out of the room, leaving Heavy behind. Heavy smiled and nodded to himself before returning to his book.

Medic hadn't been sure how Heavy and the Pyro would get on to begin with, what with them being from enemy teams and, dare he say it, Heavy having a bit of a protective streak when it came to his Doctor. After hearing how the Pyro had saved his life though, Heavy had accepted the Pyro's presence as just another aspect of Medic's company.

He hadn't been sure how the Pyro and Archimedes would get on either. But it turned out the Pyro was just as gentle with the real Archimedes as the paper one, running a gloved finger reverently down his fluffy chest and making muffled cooing noises the first time they were introduced.

All in all, things had been much more pleasant and much less burnt than Medic would have expected if anyone had warned him the enemy Pyro was going to take a sudden interest in him. But still, a Pyro in the kitchen sounded like a serious fire hazard. He'd better get over there before the entire base went up in flames.

When he arrived though, it was to find a morose Pyro standing in front of the kitchen counter. Medic had become much more adept recently at reading the Pyro's body language, but you wouldn't have to know them at all to be able to tell they were feeling upset right now. Their shoulders were slumped, arms hung loosely at their sides and mask tipped towards the floor. For some reason, they were also completely covered in flour.

'Pyro?'

The Pyro physically jumped and swung round wildly to face Medic. Usually they perked up cheerfully when they saw him, but this time they deflated even more.

'Something wrong, Pyro?' The Pyro shook their head. 'What are you up to?' Medic asked, eyes travelling over the kitchen counter. It was also covered in flour, and there was a large plastic bowl on top of it. Medic stepped closer and peered at the contents. It was some kind of batter style mixture, but very lumpy. A whole egg yolk floated on the surface, surrounded by bits of shell.

'Uh, what is this?' Medic asked. He didn't want to offend the Pyro, but he really had no idea. The Pyro shuffled their feet and turned away, mumbling something the Medic didn't quite catch.

'Sorry?'

The Pyro shook their head and turned back to Medic. 'Dusnpth mattuh. Letph do exshperamentphs inpthsteah.'

Medic took a moment to translate that. 'No, it's okay, Pyro. I'm not doing any experiments today. Heavy won't let me.' Having a willing RED hanging around made his investigations into medigun formula colours and potency levels much easier than they otherwise would have been. The RED Medic had only reluctantly given over some of his medigun fluid and point-blank refused to look into the matter himself if it involved working with a BLU.

'Oh,' the Pyro said.

Medic had another look at the bowl. 'Pancake batter?'

The Pyro shook their head.

'Some kind of dessert?'

The Pyro shook their head again.

'Cake?'

The Pyro stayed still this time. A tiny, 'Sorreh, Medipth,' filtered through their mask.

'Sorry?' Medic replied, bewildered. 'What for?'

'Birpthdeh cakth didntph work.'

'Oh,' Medic said. 'Wait. For me?' He hadn't told anybody it was his birthday. There didn't seem to be much point when going through respawn every day slowed down ageing so much. Heavy had found out from somewhere though (probably one of the spies), and had given Medic a huge new bird cage he was looking forward to setting up at the weekend. He'd also tried insisting Medic take the rest of the day off after the battle, but had only managed to get him to compromise and agree to do no experiments. But then he'd also told Medic exactly where to find the missing Pyro. Sneaky bastard; Heavy had managed to find a way of getting Medic out of the lab despite himself.

'Sorreh,' the Pyro whispered.

Medic waved away their apology. 'Whatever have you got to be sorry for? Come on, Pyro. Let's have another go at it, shall we?' He pulled another bowl out of the cupboard and set the other aside.

'Right, we'll need some plain flour if you haven't used it all, three eggs, some vanilla extract, which I know we've got for some reason because I've seen it. Now, what else? Ah yes, sugar! Cream if we've got some left for the filling. A Victoria sponge is all right, isn't it?' he asked. The Pyro hadn't moved or responded yet.

'A bit plain maybe?'

'No! Jpth... igth yur birpthdeh cakepth...'

'Nothing wrong with helping make your own birthday cake,' Medic replied. 'It's not like I'm doing it all by myself, is it? Besides, I haven't had a birthday cake in, oh, years.'

The Pyro gasped. Medic shrugged. Birthdays and cakes just stopped mattering so much when you reached a certain age. Medic decided not to mention that because he doubted the Pyro would agree. As well as that, he didn't want them to think their attempt had meant nothing to him. Even if their first try had ultimately failed, he was as flattered as a mercenary could admit to being about such a sweet gesture.

'It's also a long time since I baked a cake,' Medic said as they gathered up the ingredients. He had fond memories of helping his mother make the cakes she sold in his father's butcher's shop. (As well as fond memories of learning the butchering trade himself, from which he'd decided becoming a surgeon was the next logical step.)

It a long process. A long, messy process. But despite the dropped eggs, flour in Medic's hair and cream smeared across the floor, it was fun. Even the RED Scout couldn't ruin it when he came in and accused them of doing something 'girly' because the look on his face when Medic said he couldn't have any of the finished cake then was more than worth it.

BLU Spy and RED Sniper appeared just as the Pyro was carefully lifting the baked cake from the oven. (Those two had been spotted together a surprising amount recently. It made Medic wonder.) The Sniper found some red food dye at the back of a cupboard and even though Victoria sponge cakes weren't really supposed to be iced, Medic agreed to help the Pyro make some icing anyway. He tried to persuade them to use a little bit more of the food dye as the amount Pyro had put in left the icing looking rather _pink_. The Pyro liked it how it was though, so in the end he decided to leave it be.

Thankfully, the Sniper and Spy had nothing to say on the matter. Probably because they wanted a piece of cake each.

The Pyro suggested they put some candles on it but Medic managed to dissuade them. 'You'd need so many!' he said, 'You'd end up ruining the cake!' The real reason may have had something to do with not wanting the Pyro to do anything fire related in the kitchen or to the cake. They seemed to accept his explanation happily enough though.

The finished result was one rather lopsided sponge cake covered in oozing pink icing. What it lacked in aesthetic appeal though, it made up for in taste. Even the BLU Spy agreed, even if his first remark was that it was 'adequate.' Then the Sniper elbowed him in the ribs. After that he admitted it was, 'pleasant', which was high-praise indeed from a spy.

'Delicious!' Medic said. The Pyro made sounds of agreement from behind him. This time the muffled quality to their voice was due to a mouth stuffed full of cake, rather than from a mask. Medic waited patiently for them to finish without looking around and said, 'Right, let's take this back to the lab. I'm sure Heavy would like a piece.'

'Anpth Arthedipths!'

'Hmm, maybe a small bit. With no icing. That should be all right. By the way, Pyro?'

'Yepth Medipth?'

'Thank you for the birthday cake.'

'Yer welcompth!'

Medic didn't have to be able to see the Pyro's face to know they were grinning from ear to ear.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 2 will be up on Saturday :)


End file.
